If you need to distribute templates or documents to others, who may not be using the same language version of Word, be careful when creating your Table of Contents.

If you just create a standard TOC, using built in headings, it’s fine. The field code generating the TOC is something like this:

{ TOC \o “1-3” \h \z}

Where \o”1-3″ means use built in headings 1-3.

If you do something more adventurous, like using built in headings 1 and 2 and an appendix heading you have created yourself, at the same level as Heading 1, the field code becomes something like this:

{ TOC \o “2-2” \h \z \t “Heading 1, 1, Appendix Heading – Level 1,1”}

Which is fine if you are using an English version of Word. The problem is, that now the TOC is referring to Heading 1 using it’s actual name; in other language versions of Word, they aren’t called the same thing. For example, in the French version of Word, “Heading 1” is called “Titre 1″. In Germany, it is “Uberschrift 1”.

The result is that other language versions of Word won’t be able to populate the TOC properly, as it won’t be able to find the matching styles.

An argument perhaps for not using built in styles at all, but always creating your own.

Most people think of Word templates as a pre-defined starting point for documents, where the document inherits content and styles from the template, which is quite correct. What is less commonly known is that once a document has been created, the relationship between the document and the template changes and it may not be as you expect.

When a document is created based on a template, the document does inherit the content, styles and page setup of the template. From that point forwards, the document is on it’s own in respect of these things. In the case of the content, this is fairly obvious. You wouldn’t want changes to the content contained within a template to be replicated in documents created from it. It’s styles that catch people out.

It is often assumed that if you change one of the styles in a template, or create a new style, that this style will be updated or available in the documents created from it – which is not the case. Unless you specifically copy the style(s) in question from the template to the document, none of the style changes in a template will be available to documents already created from it. Only new documents created from the template will inherit these changes.

Likewise, if you attach an existing document to a template, none of the styles or page setup will be inherited by the document. In fact the document will remain completely unchanged.

What a template actually does after a document is created, or when it is attached to an existing document, is sit in the background and provide access to its macros and building blocks. It also provides toolbars, customised ribbons and keyboard shortcuts to the attached document. It is worth noting at this point, that when a Word document is created from a template, the macros, building blocks, customised ribbons and keyboard shortcuts are not copied across to the document itself.

So, in summary, a template is a mechanism for making content (building blocks), functionality (macros) and controls (UI / toolbars / Keyboard shortcuts), available to documents which are attached to it. Whilst documents created from templates inherit content, styles and page setup at the point of creation, there is no enduring link between these.

Templates are not a ‘style sheet’ for the documents created based on them.

I have written a number of posts in the past regarding the hidden dangers of cut ‘n’ paste, particularly in regard to corrupting styles and crashing documents. However, lets forget that for a minute while I tell you about SUPER cut ‘n’ paste!

It is sometimes necessary to copy content between documents that has track changes applied to it and you want to keep those tracked changes in the target document, but you can’t do that with the normal clipboard. What you need is Spike – a clipboard with some significant differences to the regular clipboard.

First of all, if you copy content from a document onto the Spike which has track changes, when you paste that content into another document, the associated track changes will still be there… wahoo!

But that’s not the only difference. You can also copy multiple, non continuous sections of text or other content onto the Spike. Once you’ve placed all of the content you want from the source document onto the Spike, go to the target document and when you paste the Spike, you’ll get all the selections you made pasted into the new document at the same time. The Spike will then be empty until you add something further to it.

So, how do you use it?

Use CTRL+F3 to place something onto the Spike. (Note that this is a cut ’n’ paste function, not copy ’n’ paste, so the content will disappear in the source document. If you want to retain the content in the source, just use CTRL+Z to undo the cut). Further CTRL+F3 iterations will add to the contents of the Spike until it is cleared out when you paste it’s contents.

Once you’ve put everything you need onto the Spike, use CTRL+SHIFT+F3 to paste the contents into the target document.

There is no way to paste the Spike’s content unformatted (see previous posts), so care needs to be used, but a useful tool nonetheless.